Been Caught Stealing... The Past Few Weeks Digested in List

I’m stealing, erm, borrowing the format of this post from another blog post I read recently (maybe even today). It’s well published enough the interwebs will show it to you if you hunt around.

Instead of rolling with a quiet January (and into Feb) while you all were on diets and budgets, we’ve been embracing it by doing some new product development. I’m not ready to talk about what it is yet because 1) I want them to be in production for a few weeks first and 2) I’m working on perhaps having the local press actually give it some, um, press.

However, here’s a list of how my weeks have gone:

1. Sample commercially produced versions of like products. Hmmm…
2. Source some sample ingredients. Tour of Trader Joes, Fred Meyer, New Seasons. Try not to buy other ingredients not related to project (like Candy Cane Jo Joe’s)
3. Create sample recipes
4. Taste with staff. Hmmm… Refine.
5. Create next batch of sample recipes
6. Taste. Taste with staff. Too much acid pucker… Refine.
7. Create next batch of samples recipes.
8. Taste. Taste with staff. Wooo… we like those.
9. Source more sample ingredients. Tour of Trader Joes, Fred Meyer, New Seasons. Try not to buy other ingredients not related to project (like Pirate’s Booty which is on sale)
10. Recreate batches of recipes to be production candidates. How much of what did I put in that again?
11. Write down better recipes, notes, tips and tricks. Scale to larger batch sizes.
12. Make batches of production candidates again. 
13. Taste. Yup. Got it.
14. Email clients, talk about pitch and set-up dates and times to present samples.
15. Create production candidate samples to give out at said dates and times.
16. Think about where to store new ingredients. Rearrange one of the freezers. Harvest out ghosts of projects past.
17. Look at paperwork that goes with product launch. Think about marketing materials.
18. Ignore paperwork, eat extra samples.
19. Remember I owe accountant some forms for how-grateful-am-I-2010-is-ovah filings.
20. Eat more samples.

Enjoy the pic of the building across the street from us. I shot it with an iPod camera which is marginally better than my current cellphone. Still working on it… but perhaps more another bite?

The Reindeer Were Schvitzing (or, Holiday Recipe Testing in the Dog Days of Summer)

Much like the fashion industry, many food companies plan ahead for their seasonal offerings. While my friends in the fashion world are figuring out what’s going to be hot in Spring 2011, we’re (literally) getting hot over recipe ideas for our holiday 2010 projects.

In the past couple of years, we’ve been creating holiday specific products for a well loved grocery store chain in town. Until the plans are set (and the favorites chosen), I can’t spill the apples beans too much about the project.

We’ve been spending the past couple of weeks revising recipes from last season as well as working out and refining some new ideas, and if my staff isn’t tired to eating apples and cranberries in 90 degree heat, they will be. (Either that or I will have gotten clobbered with a rolling pin before the next test batch makes it out of the oven).

There are always challenges when thinking about what customers will be interested in eating/purchasing in the coming months. As someone who struggles to meal plan for the week ahead, it’s tough to imagine what I’m going to be eating in October. So we use our best guess, a bit of creativity, sales data from the prior year and put some ideas out there.

Additionally, we find ourselves work out recipes sometimes with less than seasonal (or local) ingredients to get to our decisions. It’s definitely not apple season yet here in Oregon, but I needed a couple of fresh (erm not frozen) ones and was grateful I could find them, even if they were from last year’s crop.

At the end of the day, it’s also a good team building and learning experience. Everyone has a different palate and likes & dislikes. I try to give everyone a chance to input their ideas and feedback and I enjoy watching the process evolve to arrive our final recipes. Obviously not every idea is marketable, but it gets us thinking about the various elements of a recipe.

Besides having an opportunity to contribute, if there’s a chance we’re going to be baking a few hundred of any of these, the process is smoother if we’re excited about the outcome.

Now I need to get back to my costing spreadsheets and finalize the ingredients pricing. I know leather is a hot item in fashion for fall 2010, but how much do you think cranberries will cost?